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Copyright © 2013 Niv Kaplan
All rights reserved
. ISBN-13: 978-1492880288
ISBN-10: 1492880280
In
memory of David
Zait
(1947 – 2007)
A man
of vision and a dear friend
CONTENTS
As with "Disappearance", this novel has waited a
very long time to be published as well, and I want to thank my family and friends
for the love and patience which allowed me to complete it.
Michelle grimaced in pain
.
Her naked body was covered
with sweat. The blue veins crisscrossing her breasts were extremely noticeable.
Her nipples bulged dark and erect.
She grabbed the bed frame with
her hands making her knuckles white, her chest heaving rapidly up and down as
the sweat drained into the base of her neck. She ground her teeth and bit
her lower lip trying to keep from screaming.
Deep low moans came from
within her.
Her swollen stomach hardened
with every spasm. Her legs were spread eagled, resting high on the
silvery stands, exposing her swollen vagina to all. Mucus and blood were
slowly dripping out of her onto the bleached bedspread
.
They were beyond the Lamaze
class theories. Both were drained of energy after seven hours of labor
spasms. Michelle was brave. She wanted no epidural shots. No
sense drugging the little creature
.
But she had come close to
giving in. Her labor pains persisted for hours, unrelenting, each spasm
sharp and agonizing. The nurse would come in every few minutes to check
on her condition, but Michelle’s uterus would not yield. Exhausted and
ready to accept a pain reliever shot to her spine, her womb finally gave way
and she became fully dilated; ten fingers wide and ready to deliver.
The doctor was, not
surprisingly, late.
Something to do with gun shooting
practice and to beep him when she was ready.
The nurse crouched
between Michelle's legs, talking to her, comforting her
.
The doctor appeared just as
the tiny head began to emerge from the thrusting womb. Sam held his
breath. He could not imagine a live thing, his baby, emerging out of
there
.
Michelle pushed once more, crying
out, desperate to relieve the pain. The head was now completely out but
the infant seemed to be stuck with the mucus and vaginal lips closing on his
neck and shoulders. Michelle needed to push again. Sam felt
weak. The doctor eased his hand into her and the nurse pressed her
stomach
.
The baby slid out and the
doctor raised it, sucking the mucus out of its mouth with suction. It was
a boy and he finally let out a muddled cry
.
Tears of joy streamed down Sam's
face. Michelle cried with relief. The pressure was finally
lifted. As the nurse carefully cut the umbilical cord and laid the
crimson infant on his mother's stomach, they both felt in heaven.
d ready to deliverk and erect
Samuel Baker Jr. was perfect
.
*****
She checked on little Sammy
and quietly eased his door, leaving it partially ajar so she could hear when he
awoke
.
She walked to the bedroom and
stopped in front of the large mirror. Studying her nakedness, a year
after giving birth, the signs had all but disappeared. Her breasts had
returned to their normal size, still surprisingly pert. Her nipples were
pink again, not dark. The veins had all but retracted into place, and the
brown line that had formed down her belly had magically disappeared
.
She caressed the bare skin
between her legs and began fantasizing how she and Sam would make love
.
She caught her breath and felt
aroused as she imagined the wild rhythm they would reel into before the
shattering orgasm and the exhausted collapse
.
She looked to little Sammy's
room as if suddenly aware he was present just beyond the door, and felt a
little abashed by her fantasizing in front of the mirror, so close to
him. A few balloons still hung from his bedroom door, remnants of his
first birthday. Little Sammy had grown so beautifully his first
year. He had taken his first few steps only a month ago and was already
running around the house and lawn, his blonde curls bouncing with every step.
She never imagined how much
love she would have for him. He had innocently won both her and Sam over,
from the moment he drew his first breath, and their love for him had grown
without bounds. They both spent every spare minute of every day tending
to him, chasing after him, cuddling him, kissing him, reading him stories,
playing his games. Only work kept them away, becoming a matter to get
over with and get on home so as not to miss a minute with their child.
Sam, being something of a workaholic in his pre-fatherhood days, suffered a
complete transformation of character and would put off anything not considered
urgent, to be with his child
.
Sammy Jr. had become their
number one priority by a long shot. Michelle had added three months to
her three months maternal leave and had breast-fed the child until the day she
went back to work. Sam had requested a special leave of absence from the
office during the first month when Michelle was still recovering, but the law
firm had granted him only two weeks before he had to return full time.
Still, those first two weeks, with little Sammy just barely opening his eyes to
the world and Sam fussing over their every wish, were the happiest and most
complete she had ever felt. Breast-feeding seemed as natural to her as
any task she had ever performed though her nipples became quite sore with the
constant sucking. Little Sammy had located his source of food a mere one
hour after she had been wheeled out of the delivery room, and had not stopped
sucking until she had to end it to go back to work. She had slowly
primed him, alternating more of the bottled food into his daily diet but when
she finally ended it, both she and her baby felt a great loss. Her
breasts became extremely sensitive and sore once she stopped as the liquid
first hardened into lumps then dried out. Sammy still clawed at her
breasts with his tiny hands and made sucking motions with his mouth every time
she picked him up
.
She was a software engineer
for a fighter aircraft manufacturer, working on cockpit avionics. Before
Sammy was born, her job would often take her away from home for spans of time
when she would be required to participate in flight testing and technology
demonstrations at Air Force bases around the country. Sammy changed all
that. Upon returning to her job, she mostly remained at the home office,
sending off her assistants who would report back on the outcome and any
modifications that had to be made. She was well regarded in the company
where there was always a shortage of capable software engineers, and had
actually been promoted just so she could cut down on travel
.
Sam, who was well on his way
to making full partner at Sweeny & Sweeny, a medium sized Century City Law
firm, had considerably slackened off in his dedication to work since Sammy was born
and had brought his advancement to a halt. The stuck-up executives
arguing in stuffy courtrooms over incredible sums of money had lost their charm
and had taken a back seat to the toddler who was now occupying his home, always
ready to give him a hug when he came in the door
.
Before returning to work,
Michelle had found a day care center for Sammy, a few blocks from their house.
The place was lively and well-kept and it served the hours she needed to have
him looked after, eight in the morning to five in the afternoon. The
children at the center were aged six months to two years. The head
Supervisor was a young and very dynamic redhead named Pam whose son Timmy was
only two weeks older than Sammy. There were twelve other children besides
Sammy and Timmy; all were older when Sammy joined the center. Pam and her
two assistants seemed very capable keeping the children busy and well fed for
nine hours, five days a week. The place was a rented two-storey house
with a large back yard full of swings and slides, a sand lot, push carts and
toys, and appropriately isolated from neighboring houses by a tall fence
wrapped with spindly bushes and lofty trees. Inside was a dining room
where the children ate breakfast and lunch, two toilets with a diaper change area,
two large bedrooms where the children napped, the younger ones in cribs, the
older ones on mattresses, and a huge lively playroom equipped with an array of
children’s playthings.
Michelle preferred the day
care to taking a nanny and having Sammy spend his entire day with adults.
Both she and Sam believed Sammy was better off socializing with other children,
though she did feel very guilty leaving him alone for so many hours at such a
young age. But Sammy adjusted well to the center and before long he would
brush her off in the morning and crawl away to play with his friends. It
made her both proud and sad.
Proud at his ability to
adjust so quickly and sad at the thought of him no longer needing her as much
.
She looked at the clock on the
dresser next to the bed. It was past nine. Sam had alerted her he
would be late, something about an involved deposition. It was quite rare
for him to be late these days. Still, she missed him. She missed
not having him at dinner, the family nucleus being incomplete. She also
missed watching him give Sammy his bath, or more accurately, joining Sammy's
bath. It was perhaps her favorite part of the day. Sammy hated
being put in the tub, but once in, he refused to come out. When Sam would
finally manage to strip the little
fella
, his diaper
and clothes thrown on the bathroom floor, Sammy would gingerly try to elude his
dad from putting him into the tub and would kick and scream once caught.
For little Sammy to yield, Sam, on various occasions, would finally strip and
get into the tub himself. Then the two would spend a good part of
an hour
laughing and splashing water in every
direction. Lately, Sammy had learned to stick part of his face under
water and would repeatedly show off his newfound art. Michelle would pass
by every few minutes on her way to the laundry room where a stack of clothes
waited to be ironed and folded. Eventually she would be called to assist
in shampooing Sammy’s wet curls, another deed he detested since the shampoo
always found a way to sting his eyes. To perform that task, Sam would
hold him still and Michelle would quickly shampoo and condition his hair then
soap the little squirming body
.
Then she would do the same to
Sam, caressing his body with soap. It would remind her of the time they
first met, when she, a freshman at Stanford, had taken off for the Greek
Islands during summer break, and there, on the island of Rhodes, in a crowded
youth hostel, she first saw him
.
He lay naked in a tub, the
only male among three naked beauties, two Scandinavians and a Greek. The
Greek woman, Elena, whom Michelle got to know quite well later, stood with her
naked behind to the bathroom entrance soaping the man. As Michelle would
later learn, parties involving booze and bare body parts were nothing out of
the ordinary during summer time on Rhodes, world renowned for its promiscuous
indulgence. It was difficult to spot a bikini top or any top on the
beaches and mostly no one, women or men, wore anything at all.
Michelle, who had arrived in
Rhodes the day before she happened upon the erotic bathroom scene, exhausted
from the trip, had fallen sound asleep shortly after checking in at the
hostel. She had awoken late in the night and lay wide awake
listening to the festivities in the room opposite hers, unable to go back to
sleep due to jetlag. She had finally worked up the courage to go
investigate when she encountered the bizarre scene with her future husband
lying stark naked in the middle of it
.
Besides Elena, the Greek nude,
there was Lota, a Swede, who lay in the tub opposite Sam, her large breasts
sticking out from the soapy water, rubbing against the man's exposed
knees. The other nude, Nilla, also a Swede, was attempting to light a
large cigar stuck between the man's teeth. Sam was actually the first to
notice Michelle and he drunkenly grinned at her and made a gesture with his
head for her to join the crowd. Elena, still busy soaping him, turned her
head then stood up from her crouched position. To this day Michelle could
recall the woman's engaging features: her strikingly sharp face, her piercing
black eyes, her slender body alert and proud glistening from water and soap,
her breasts round and erect, her tanned skin, her pubic hair neatly trimmed,
her long legs shapely and smooth. She smiled at Michelle flashing a set
of perfect white teeth then in lame English invited her to join
.
Michelle did not linger long
enough to observe the conclusion of that scene and Sam never bothered to
complete the tale, partly because he could not recall much and partly because
it felt awkward. Embarrassed, she took one last glance at the naked
bodies, noticing the man's erection then quickly retreated to her room.
Later that day she met Sam and
Elena on the beach. They were both naked and she felt out of place
again. They invited her to join them under their shade and she accepted
seeing as she knew no one on the island and felt quite lonely. She found
herself seated across from Sam unable to take her eyes off his penis which was
semi loosely dangling between his legs. Later Sam would tell her he had
quite a difficult time keeping from getting aroused by her glances. Elena
ordered beer then asked Sam to apply some suntan lotion on her body. She
stretched out on her back and succumbed to Sam's caressing. Sam smeared
the lotion all over her body not being shy caressing her more private
areas. To help him, Elena, totally unabashed, spread her legs allowing
him to lubricate the inside of her thighs and buttocks. At one point, Michelle
noticed Sam's penis hardening but when he was done, it went back to its normal
state. The beer arrived with the two Swedes, Lota and Nilla, both naked,
then began the small talk and Michelle learned that Sam was actually a native
Californian like herself who was to begin his second year of Law at the
University of Southern California. Then the three girls took off for the
water and Michelle was left alone with Sam. He suggested she take off her
bikini so she would feel more comfortable. She did not respond right away
but, inspecting the beach, noticed she was the odd woman out. She looked
at him again, sitting naked, so unabashed in front of her, then took off her
bikini top and ran for the water. When she returned, Elena suggested the
use of suntan lotion on her pale breasts, a task Sam quickly volunteered
for. But it was Elena who employed the lotion under Sam's watchful eye
.